Suffering as I Suffer You
by Fireflights
Summary: "Dragons are not tools for war," He says, but he doesn't meet her eyes. "They will be."
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note:

Tumblr prompt from an anon for Enemies to Lovers + War AU.

I may continue this as a series (?)

* * *

The battlefield is alive with the dying.

She sees him across the western front, surrounded by the corpses of her fallen soldiers. Through the blood and the smoke and the dragon fire, Astrid pauses in her conquest to watch the man.

Sword ignited, he swings it in heavy arcs around his body to ward off her soldiers as they close in on him and the dragon that curls around him.

Teeth bared and body bloodied, the beast snarls at her men. She wonders, briefly, why the pair do not take to the sky where they have a clear advantage. That question is answered, though, as the beast swings its crippled tail at the soldiers.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, King of the Wilderwest has lost the battle.

Astrid knows this.

He knows it as well.

The flame of his sword has dimmed and the fire that burned inside his Night Fury has grown cold with overuse. Besides, without a tail, the dragon is grounded and everyone knows that a downed dragon is a dead dragon.

Around him, men and dragons lay dead and dying. The remaining cries that rise above the clash of steel are not ones of rage or fear, but of pain and acceptance.

Her soldiers converge on the remaining Wilderwesterners, cutting down any and all who stand in the way of their queen's ascension. A platoon of her most skilled surrounds the king and his Night Fury, spears and swords ready to strike.

"Not him." She says, her voice carrying over the crowd of fighters and carrying the weight of her station. Her hands are full with the bloody ax that struck down many of his men. Her face, covered in the blood of dragons and human alike, stares him down. Eyes of ice meet eyes of fire. "He is not to be killed."

Her soldiers heed her words, ripping the man and dragon apart, but doing them no further harm.

The King of the Wilderwest doesn't surrender.

Struggling and biting and cursing, more dragon than man, he is brought before her. It takes two soldiers to force him to kneel at her blood-soaked boots, but once he is in the mud, prosthetic ripped away, he doesn't fight. Crippled, he glares up at her.

Their eyes lock in a silent battle of wills that both know will end with the loss of a throne. Beneath all the blood, Astrid sees freckles and green eyes that stare into her with such intensity that she fights the urge to shrink under his gaze.

His eyes break from her, not in submission, but in concern for his dragon.

Behind her, her soldiers have bound the beast's wings and legs. Four men hold the beast's head to the ground as they force a metal muzzle over its snarling mouth.

"Don't hurt him!" The usurped king cries, fear in his eyes for the first time.

Astrid raises a hand and the soldiers step away from the dragon. It writhes on the ground, bound and chained, but desperate to return to its master's side. "Keep the dragon restrained, but leave it alive. For now."

At her feet, the king releases a sigh, lungs heaving as though the weight of the war had finally settled on his shoulders. "Thank you," he breathes in a quiet whisper.

"You are the dragon king." Astrid states. "Pride of the Wilderwest?"

"I was." He spits through blood-stained teeth. Looking around him, he sees few Wilderwesterners who are on their feet. Those who survived the bloodshed are now in chains.

"The battle is over," She informs him. "Your forces are defeated. Your dragons dead. Surrender."

"I will never surrender."

He will die a free man. He will die for his people and his home and his body will be laid bare in the earth soaked in the blood of his people.

"I wouldn't expect anything less from the last Night Fury." She says. "But I need dragons if I am to defeat my enemies. I have heard stories of your wisdom, Hiccup Haddock. Surrender, train dragons for my army and those who claimed loyalty to you shall be spared. Human and dragon alike."

"Dragons are not tools for war." He says, but he doesn't meet her eyes. Regret hangs heavy on his features.

"They will be." She says.

She leaves him with her men, but he can see her, in the distance. She gives commands to round up his soldiers and she organizes the retrieval of her wounded.

He is led away by two of her knights, forced to hop along in their grasp until he can be placed in a wagon for transport. Bound, bloodied, and his crown stolen, he is an easy target for the victorious soldiers' jests. They jeer at him from their horses and look at him with disdain.

Resolute, the king of dragons ignores them. With his chin held high, he looks at the sky, knowing he will never feel the thrill of flight again.


	2. Chapter 2

Broken and bloodied, Hiccup is paraded through the burned ruins of his country.

He has seen dragon fire. He has _felt_ dragon fire. But even dragon fire's destruction cannot match the smoldering, man-made fires that consumed his kingdom.

From his position in the procession, he can see the remains of his people. They huddle by the edges of the road and in the tree-line like refugees of a war-torn land. Meeting their eyes, he can see their suffering. He tries to instill courage in them with his glances, but they only offer him a look of pity before lowering their eyes to the dirt.

Hobbled and trapped as he is, he can do nothing to inspire them. Perhaps, he thinks sadly, that is very reason Queen Hofferson has kept him alive.

Imprisoned by her, the breaking of his spirit can be made into a spectacle to break the spirit of his people. Had he been slain in battle, his Hooligans would have risen up in his honor, raising their swords in the futile defense of a dead man's honor.

The wagon lurches, throwing Hiccup forward. Wrists bound behind his back, he is unable to catch himself and he hits the floor with a dull thud. His head rings and he can hear the laughter of the soldiers from above.

He can do nothing to nurse his ego or save his people.

xXx

Hauled from the wagon and thrown over the shoulder of a soldier, Hiccup feels more like a sack of grain than a prisoner of war.

To the surprise of his captors, he doesn't fight. Instead, he takes in the view of his homeland as they carry him toward the docks. After all, it may be the last time he ever sees it and he wants to remember the wind moving through the trees and the glistening sand of his beaches.

The king of dragons, born for the sky and not the sea, is imprisoned in the belly of a warship.

The journey to the Eastlands is long, Hiccup knows this.

Locked away in his cell, his stomach turns with each wave that bashes against the hull of the ship. It feels as though the Great West Ocean and Sea of Suffering do not want the King of the Wilderwest to leave his archipelago. Their attempts are in vain, however, as the warship slices through the waves and presses ever forward.

He is given nothing to settle his stomach, though the daily rations of bread and water help ease the churning inside of him.

In his cell, time means little. The only indications he has are the changing of the guards and the sliver of light that hits his cell when the ocean is at peace.

Above his cage, a porthole allows in the smell of ocean air and when the sea is calm, a glimpse of the sky. The open-air calls to him, but grounded in every sense of the vile word, he can do little but yearn for the feeling of wind in his hair and scales beneath his hands. It's the cruelest injustice he's faced in the war to date.

The guards that stand outside his cell speak on his fate once they reach the Eastlands. They take bets on the number of days he has left.

Stubborn and prideful, Hiccup refuses to let their words shake him. He keeps his eyes toward the porthole and waits to see the sky.

xXx

In the nights, he calls for his wings. Screeching in that too-Night-Fury-to-be-human way, he seeks his Dragon-Brother. The guards view him as a demon.

Hiccup receives no response from his Dragon-Brother, but he knows his wings are alive. He would feel it in his bones and in his soul and in everything that is him if his Dragon-Brother had been lost to the war.

At nights, he calls for his wings.

But not this night. He hears the guards whispering of the queen's visitation and he hears her steps as she draws closer to his cage. Slowing his breathing, he pretends to be asleep. His chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, and she must believe his ruse because she leans down to study him curiously.

With cold eyes, she watches him. Her long blonde hair falls around her shoulders unrestrained, and through his lashes, Hiccup watches her and thinks that she could be beautiful if hatred and death did not follow her like shadows.

"Has he called for his dragon?" She whispers to her guards.

"Not tonight, Your Grace." They respond.

"Is it true he speaks their language?" She asks, and Hiccup thinks he can hear in awe in her voice.

"It's true. I've heard himself," One guard replies.

"It's…unnatural," Another adds.

"It's wonderful," Astrid corrects. "He will train dragons for my army. With his help, we will finally take back everything that was stolen from us."

"And if he won't help?" A guard asks.

"Then he will die."

When she leaves, he calls for his Dragon-Brother.

xXx

Days pass and Hiccup is carted across the sea like a prize jewel to be sold in a faraway bazaar.

The warship, finally, finds its home in the docks of the Eastland and Hiccup is brought onto land for the first time in weeks. Land—even foreign land—gives him hope. Land means open sky and dragons. It means resistance and survival and freedom.

Given his prosthetic, but restrained by two guards, Hiccup is led in the Queen's cavalcade. He stumbles through the streets of the Eastland's capital city, taking in the sight of the tall, stone buildings and the jeering faces of its people. In the distance, Queen Hofferson's fortress home looms in. Beneath its shadow, the queen rides on a horse of solid white.

She holds her head high, basking in the praise of her people as the war party files ever closer to its home. At her horse's feet, flowers are thrown and in the air, songs are carried from ear to ear.

Children point and mock at Hiccup, but they fall silent and stare in awe at his dragons.

Deadly Nadders, the conquering queen's favorite, are brought, caged and muzzled, on carts pulled by horses. The dragons hold their heads as though they are not prisoners. They brandish the spines on their tails, hissing beneath the muzzles and swinging their thorny crowns.

Behind the Deadly Nadders, a platoon of soldiers surrounds a single age.

Inside, a black dragon paces. Taking a single step, the dragon turns his body, tail curled around his legs, and steps in the other direction. His eyes, slits of black against green, glare out into the throng of people. Mouth bound by a muzzle, he cannot roar a challenge to the false queen's authority. He searches for his Viking-Brother.

Over the soldiers and the Nadders, Hiccup's eyes meet Toothless's and their world settles.

Toothless smiles, gummy and pink, behind the harsh metal of his muzzle and it feels Hiccup's heart with the happiest mixture of pride and relief.

If Toothless is still alive then all can still be well. With his fire and his wings, they can take back what was lost.

Hiccup stands straighter, posture befitting the king he is.

It is then, that Hiccup fortifies his mettle and swears to his gods—though he does not know if they can hear him in this foreign land.

He is a dragon. And dragons do not bow for conquerors.

Hiccup swears this to himself and his Dragon-Brother.

He swears they will touch the sky again.


End file.
